ON SS. IRENAEUS, OR, AND OREPSIS, MARTYRS
In the time of the heathen emperors.
COLLECTION.
Their cult, eulogy, observations.
Irenaeus, martyr (St.)
Or, martyr (St.)
Orepsis, martyr (St.)
BY J. P.
[1] The annual memory of these Martyrs is kept in various Greek Calendars on the XXII day of August. For the Menologium which Sirleto rendered into Latin and Canisius published has this on that day: They are mentioned in various Greek Calendars on another day: On the same day the holy martyrs Irenaeus, Orus, and Orepsis, by the sword [] after fire, after wild beasts, after hangings, being struck with the sword, received the palm of martyrdom. The Menaeon of Chifflet: Ὢρ᾽, Εἰρηναῖος, Ὄροψις ξίφει. That is: Or, Irenaeus, Oropsis by the sword. The Great Menaea in print: On the same day the holy martyrs Irenaeus, Or, and Orepsis are consummated by the sword.* And presently in the same place they are honored with these Greek verses, which I render thus:
Ξίφει τριὰς τμηθεῖσα τριστάτας πλάνης Βυτῷ καλύπτει τῶν ἑαυτῆς αἱμάτων.
When this Triad falls by the sword, it covers the captains of error In the deep flood of its own blood.
There is an allusion in the words τριὰς and τριστάτας, which fall similarly. We have the Martyrdom of these three Champions, marked also on that day, from the Greek Ambrosian codex f. N. n. 152, which we have so often indicated. But Papebroch, in volume III of the month of March, on the XXV day, page 555, on St. Irenaeus, bishop of Sirmium and martyr, says: This epitome displeases me … because it confounds Irenaeus the bishop with the Levite, who suffered the day before and probably elsewhere, with the two companions whom we named above, on the XXII of August, according to all the rest.
[2] Moreover, their eulogy, or the history of their contest, is found today in the Great Menaea, elsewhere on this 30th of August with a eulogy: and in the Synaxarium which survives from the Menologium compiled by order of the emperor Basil, from which I render the Greek text — published by us at the end of the first volume of this month of August — in the usual manner thus: Blessed Irenaeus was a minister of the Church together with holy Or and holy Orepsis: who, while preaching Christ, were seized by the worshippers of idols, and standing before the governor, were tortured with various torments. Then they were cast into the fire, and, a shower bursting forth from above and the fire being extinguished, they came out unharmed. After this they were also handed over to wild beasts as food; but by God's providence they were delivered from these also. Likewise, being hung upon a beam, while they were violently torn with iron claws, again, by Christ's favor, they remained without harm. Then the idolaters, beholding their unchangeable mind and driven into great fury, attacked them with one accord: and one struck them with staves; another crushed their teeth with stones; another seized them by the hair and dragged them; another set upon them with his heel and trampled them. At last, when they had bound them with ropes and dragged them outside the city, they cut off their sacred heads with the sword.
[3] various observations are made Here for you, reader, are several observations upon this eulogy. Let the first be concerning their office. In the edition of the Menologium of the emperor Basil, which was published at Urbino in the year 1727, but interpolated from elsewhere, this title is prefixed to their eulogy, which is there given on the XXIII of August: Ἄθλησις τῶν ἁγίων μαρτύρων Ἱερέων Ὢρ, καὶ Ὀρέψεως. The contest of the holy martyrs and priests, Or and Orepsis. Where you see that two of the Martyrs are called priests, and the proper name of Irenaeus is omitted, in whose place the common noun ἱερέων has been thrust in by error, since it occurs nowhere either in the text of the eulogy of that edition or in ours;
but in both λειτουργὸς is found. Now the title of our edition on this XXX day of August has it thus: Ἄθλησις τῶν ἁγίων μαρτύρων Εἰρηναίου, Ὢρ, καὶ Ὀρέψεως. The contest of the holy martyrs Irenaeus, Or, and Orepsis. You see therefore, reader, that in this announcement the proper names of each of the three Martyrs are expressly given.
[4] concerning their office Secondly. In both editions the office of λειτουργός, as I was just saying, is attributed to the Martyrs; but in the Great Menaea it is written of St. Irenaeus, λευΐτης ὑπῆρχε τῆς Ἐκκλησίας, He was a Levite of the Church. In the Euchologium, or Ritual of the Greeks, in Goar, in the notes on the order of sacred ministry, page 12, these things are observed concerning the word λειτουργεῖν: The Greek ecclesiastical authors, who long ago at first and in the beginning of the infant Church transferred this word λειτουργεῖν from the signification of any public — even profane — ministry to the office of celebrating the Mass, do not everywhere use it in this proper and strict sense; but they show that it likewise connotes any ministry annexed to the function of sacrificing, or ordained to it: in which sense the deacon is here said λειτουργεῖν. For although the common tongue of the Greeks today calls only the priest λειτουργὸν, and the office of sacrificing which he discharges λειτουργίαν, it is nonetheless beyond doubt that the same appellation was common to subdeacons and deacons, in Dionysius, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 3, whose words (or another's, whoever the author was) he cites. Then he adds this:
[5] which they are said to have exercised: Nay, even the ministries of the lector serving at Mass are called συλλειτουργικά: whence also among the Offices of the Greek church there is a separate book τῶν συλλειτουργικῶν τοῦ ἀναγνώστου, the fellow-ministry of the lector. Let this suffice for our purpose; more may be read there. In Macri's Hierolexicon, at the word Levita, this is noted: Of the tribe of Levi; among whom in the Old Testament the priesthood was hereditary: but in the New Testament it signifies a Deacon. Since these things are so, it seems to us more probable that our Champions held the office of deacon, or subdeacon, or, if you will, of ministers of the sacred liturgy — which last comes nearer to the name λειτουργός, which of itself does not determine of what sort that sacred ministry was.
[6] To these two observations let a third be added. Although in various other Calendars they are treated on the XXII day of this month, and in the Great Menaea, on which day they also stand in Castellanus, why they are given on this day. we nevertheless, following the Basilian Synaxarium, have preferred to defer them to the present day. But for what reason they appear in the Urbino edition on the XXIII of August, we do not sufficiently understand. At what time, however, on what day, and in what place they accomplished their martyrdom is hidden from us, since the distinguishing marks are wanting by whose evidence anything of these could be drawn out by us. Above I have placed them in the time of the heathen emperors, to which the narrative of their martyrdom seems to belong.
Annotations*. This word is redundant.